Thursday, June 12, 2014

Let's talk about Splatoon.

If you missed out on Nintendo's E3 Direct on Tuesday, you should be advised that - gorgeous Zelda reveals aside - the most exciting thing they showed off is a totally-weird-looking game called Splatoon, which represents one of the most interesting and creative things to come out of Nintendo in a dog's age.

An original IP? From Nintendo? Be still my beating heart.

The footage above paints it as your standard competitive shooter, albiet one starring adorable squid-children armed with paint guns, but simply based off the reveal during Nintendo's stream, there seems to be so much depth and originality, here.

You can "kill" your enemies by nailing them with your team's paint color, causing them to respawn back at their base, but that is merely a strategic choice made in the name of the game's true objective - to paint as much of the world as possible in your team's color.

There are a variety of weapons, from water guns filled with ink to ink-rocket-launchers,

ink sniper rifles

and ink rollers.

Painting the world is both your ultimate objective and a necessary strategic aim, as the squid-children can morph into squid form and swim through their team's ink far faster than they can run across it.

You can take flying leaps out of the ink and, in squid form, you can hide motionless under your team's color painted on the ground - undetectable to your enemies, and ready to pounce in a surprise attack. As soon as you hit the opposing team's color, though, you're forced out of squid form to trudge, ever-so-slowly through their ink.

CHANCE...

...is actually named David.

This is where I write about video games. Beyond the simple pleasure of it, I hope to use this place as a bit of a mental gym to re-develop my writing style - something I seem to have misplaced around the turn of the century.

It will also serve as a personal blog, but for the most part if you enjoy discussion of gaming news, independent reviews and pointless musings, you have come to precisely the right place.

It's my custom to do at least one post per day - but whether it ends up being ten posts of breaking news and a review, or one post complaining about how I have a tummy ache is not set in stone.